Merchants that are involved with payment transactions are often interested in providing consumers with easier, simpler methods of payment. Multiple payment options, such as cash, check, credit card, debit card, and gift card, as well as payment services such as PayPal™, BillMeLater™, and the like are available for consumers to purchase products and/or services. In pursuit of greater convenience and more rapid transactions at point of sale (POS) terminals, payment cards have more recently been developed that allow the account number to be automatically read from the card. These cards are often referred to as “proximity payment cards” or “contactless payment cards,” and they utilize radio frequency identification (RFID).
Other proximity payment schemes are also increasingly in use. For example, capabilities of paying with a mobile device, such as a mobile telephone, thereby turning the mobile device into a contactless payment device have also been implemented. Merchants may enable a smartphone user to pay for a transaction by inputting or transmitting their telephone number, and having their mobile network operator charge them as per their usual billing process. In some implementations, this may occur through a direct carrier billing system which allows customers to use their mobile device to make purchases, and pay for those purchases by allowing those purchases to be charged back to their phone bill or their direct billing account with the carrier. In order to provide this payment option, companies that are direct carrier billing providers and/or aggregators, must sign up with various merchants and mobile network operators, leaving the entire system in a closed loop network.
One issue that is raised by this proposal is that in order to implement this system, the direct carrier billing provider and/or aggregator must have merchants as well as mobile network operators (MNOs) sign up for their system in order to connect the merchant with the MNO. In such an instance, the mobile network operator and/or a third party entity may aggregate transactions for settlement. This would facilitate the billing of that purchase back to the consumer's mobile account. This process may be time consuming for the direct carrier billing providers and/or aggregators, as well as inconvenient for consumers who might not know which merchants participate in the payment system, which may result in significant technological and legal disadvantages.